Comment by 0xpgm
25 days ago
Things like this make me realize the software engineering 'industry' is not a real industry.
There are people who write important software that the world runs on, but they do it outside the 'industry'.
A real industry should be responsive to events of nature, or at least the market, not vibes.
I don't know why you think a "real" industry would work in the most idealized way. The media heavily reports on the stupid insane crap of the tech industry, that doesn't mean every other industry is sane they're just not as vocal on Twitter.
Having worked in electronics, mechanics and software engineering the latter is definitely the insane clown show of the three. With the others sure you have some craziness once in a while but you are still being constrained by the real world and solid engineering principles.
Oh its well within industry norms for leaders to make decisions based on dick measuring contests.
> A real industry should be responsive to events of nature, or at least the market, not vibes.
Market is vibes! The price of something at a moment is, for example, what market participants collectively agree what the price of it should be.
Hate to break it to ya, but this is how most C-suites operate. Their job isn't to run a company well. It's to appear to the board/investors that they're running a good company.
It is a better play to do the popular thing in a way that measures as "ahead". Then it's hard to argue against a raise. But if you stick your neck out on your thoughtful expertise, it can take years or more for the value to come thru. You can easily be replaced by then.
The only antidote is a board that has a real working nuanced understanding of the entire industry. But this rarely happens, for many reasons.